1. Field of Invention
This present invention relates to an album construction for holding and displaying folded printed cards, particularly greeting cards.
2. Brief Description of the Art
During holidays or other special occasions, the exchange of greeting cards is a salutatory custom. Greeting cards form a tangible expression of well wishes from family and friends and are often accorded prominent placement atop tables, counters, mantels, and the like; however, they are all to often discarded within a short period of time. Even when not discarded, collections of greeting cards are often stacked and stored in such a manner as to render infrequent the enjoyment derived through retrieving and viewing their contents. In an attempt to provide a convenient manner of storage for greeting cards that both enables and encourages repeat viewing long after the passage of holiday seasons and events, several inventive techniques have been developed over the years. Many of these techniques involved the construction of a plurality of spaced-apart, side-by-side strands formed so that the folded card may be suspended or supported therefrom. Typical of these card and sheet paper holders may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 104,415; 104,863; 158,839; 308,295; 936,223; 3,789,526; 4,840,407; 4,852,280; and 5,573,276 and German Patent No. 23017 and Swiss Patent No. 177949.
While the aforementioned devices adequately retain the cards therein, there remain several problems inherent in many of their designs. Many of these card holding devices are both labor intensive and time consuming to produce. Because multiple individual elastic strands are mounted in a side-by-side manner, great care is required during the manufacturing process to assure proper alignment of the strands free of overlap. Typically, a central rectangular bar, core, or post member is provided to support the series of strands in a side-by-side relationship which is subsequently mounted to the spine of a folder. The ends of the strands were secured at each end of the bar, core or post member. This process is costly. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,573,276, the elastic strands were wrapped around an inner lining material which is then affixed to the folder. While cheaper to construct, this methodology is still costly and its assembly is somewhat complex. Specifically, this card holder requires both a full inner liner and an outer album cover that must be mated together in particular fashion. Such a requirement limits the ability to buy discreet parts of the device from the lowest cost provider and to assemble them in the most cost efficient manner.
What is needed then is a album for holding and displaying greeting cards that is aesthetically pleasing, consists of individual parts each of which may be produced quickly and cheaply, and whose parts can be assembled efficiently and interchangeably to produce marketable variations suitable to the needs and desires of the consumer.